The invention relates to a cleaning device for a component arranged within a process air circuit of a household tumble dryer, especially for a heat exchanger, of the type described herein.
Such a cleaning device is already to be taken as known from EP 0 468 573 A1, in which a heat exchanger embodied as a working medium evaporator is arranged within a process air circuit of a heat pump tumble dryer. In this case the cleaning device includes a brush device with a flat brush that can be moved back and forth by means of an electric motor and a crank across the face of the heat exchanger. This is designed to remove from the fins of said device the lint accumulating on the fins of the heat exchanger, which is transported by the hot, moist process air and on cooling down comes into contact with the working medium evaporator.
The disadvantage of this known cleaning device is however the fact that the flat brush can only reliably remove the lint from the fins of the heat exchanger from the front side of the heat exchanger over a restricted depth. In addition the lint captured by the bristles and removed from the heat exchanger adheres to the bristles relatively easily, which enormously degrades the cleaning result —especially when the flat brush has been idle for some time.